Legendary singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot performs this Sunday, Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. at The Florida Theatre, 128 E. Forsyth St., in downtown Jacksonville. The Grammy award winning Canadian septuagenarian songsmith has been hailed by everyone from fellow “Canuck” Robbie Robertson to Bob Dylan, while artists like Elvis Presley and Jimmy Buffet have sang his tunes. In this delightful clip from 1986 (recorded in the Netherlands, no less) those Texas sweethearts The Butthole Surfers tackle his classic hit and party-killer from 1975, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Tickets are $35 and $50. 355-2787. - Dan Brown

PETA’s planned protest of the Barnum & Bailey Circus tomorrow afternoon will include an appearance by an elephant on crutches. Or rather, an “elephant” on crutches. (This is PETA, after all.)

A press release from the group notes that PETA’s anti-circus efforts are supported by Cloris Leachman (still not on crutches) who sent a letter to Mayor Alvin Brown to protest animal cruelty at the circus, and to urge arthritic seniors not to bring their families to watch (equally arthritic) elephants climb on small drums.

Here’s the full text of the press release:

‘ELEPHANT’ ON CRUTCHES CONFRONTS POTENTIAL CIRCUSGOERS

PETA Warns Jacksonville Mayor That Ringling Illegally Forces Crippled Elephants to Perform Stunts

What: An “elephant” on crutches wearing a bloody bandage around her head will lead PETA’s contingent of protesters on Thursday as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus prepares for its opening show at Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena. The action comes on the heels of a letter thatRaising Hope star Cloris Leachman sent to Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown explaining that Ringling routinely forces sick and arthritic elephants to perform difficult tricks in its shows—which is a violation of Florida state law. Leachman joins PETA in asking the mayor to prohibit Ringling from using these ailing animals in its Jacksonville shows. As Leachman explains in her PETA video urging seniors not to take their families to the circus, arthritis is one of the leading reasons why captive elephants in the U.S. are euthanized.

“Forcing elephants to perform painful contortions despite ill health is cruel—and it could be a death sentence,” says PETA Director Delcianna Winders. “We’re telling families that if their children or grandchildren love animals, the last place they should go is this kind of circus.”

Where: Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, E. Duval Street and A Philip Randall Boulevard, Jacksonville

When: Thursday, January 19, 12 noon

Your coverage is invited. Please RSVP to David Perle at 202-483-7382, extension 2194, or DavidP@peta.org.

Cloris Leachman’s letter to Mayor Brown is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.

Movies in the Park is a free, four-week-long movie series, held each spring at Treaty Oak Park in downtown Jacksonville’s Southbank that features family-geared flicks and encourages attendees to bring blankets, lawn chairs and a picnic. Downtown Vision has created an online poll that allows people to cast their votes and decide which movies are to be screened. While Folio Weekly was saddened that such films as Kenneth Anger’s “Lucifer Rising,” Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels,” the horror classic “Phantasm” and the LSD-Western of 1971’s “Zachariah” were omitted from the ballot, we must admit that we do love seeing Rodney Dangerfield coach some soccer in “Ladybugs.” The 2012 “Movies in the Park at Treaty Oak” will be held on four Friday nights this spring, dates to be confirmed. Well-behaved pets are welcome, alcoholic beverages are not. – Dan Brown

In a January 1965 “Playboy Interview,” Martin Luther King, Jr. talks on a broad range of subjects, including non-violent protest, riots that summer in some major cities, how the Civil Rights Act hadn’t gone far enough, and St. Augustine’s role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

He lists a litany of violent acts that were taking place in St. Augustine in 1963-1964 that brought attention to America’s oldest city — from Klansman abducting four St. Augustine black men and beating them unconscious with clubs, brass knuckles and pistol butts, to the shooting up of the home of Civil Rights Leader Dr. Robert Hayling twice and jailing of four teenagers for six months for picketing.  King explained,  ”So S.C.L.C. (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) decided to join in last year’s celebration of St. Augustine’s gala 400th birthday party as America’s oldest city — by converting it into a nonviolent battleground. This is just what we did.”

When Playboy asked King about the riots the summer of 1963 and 1964 in major U.S. cities and what that meant in terms of his dedication to non-violent protest, King said that he believed that a just means must be used to reach a just end. Then he warned of how violence is ever present in a great explanation of what poverty and disenfranchisement and dehumanization does to a person.

“But America will be faced with the ever-present threat of violence, rioting and senseless crime as long as Negroes by the hundreds of thousands are packed into malodorous, rat-plagued ghettos; as long as Negroes remain smothered by poverty in the midst of an affluent society; as long as Negroes are made to feel like exiles in their own land; as long as Negroes continue to be dehumanized; as long as Negroes see their freedom endlessly delayed and diminished by the head winds of tokenism and small handout from the white power structure. No nation can suffer any greater tragedy than to cause millions of its citizens to feel that they have no stake n their society.”

— Susan Eastman

Ever since the Fernandina Beach City Commission approved a five-year, $6-million plan to revitalize downtown and voted to pay for it with a tax increase, there’s been a revolt in this historic waterfront town. Voters elected two commissioners in August who said they’d stop the Forward Fernandina plan. After Charlie Corbett and Tea Party stalwart Sarah Pelican were sworn into office in December, there’s been talk that they wanted to fire City Manager Michael Czymbor for his role in putting together and promoting the revitalization plan.

The two commissioners and fellow Commissioner Jeffrey Bunch began to pressure Czymbor. The city manager started negotiating to resign last week.  When Commissioners announced a special meeting last night (Friday night!) at 5 p.m. to consider firing Czymbor and city attorney Tammi Bach, Czymbor had the terms already worked out. There was talk of firing him on the spot, but Commissioners gave him a week to clear out of his office.

Every city manager knows that they can be out of a job with a change in the political. Some people in Fernandina have been wanting to get rid of Czymbor since he took the job six years ago. More troubling is the meetings and conclaves that proceeded Friday’s night’s special public meeting. All that took place out of the Sunshine. Commissioners haven’t decided about Bach’s job yet.

— Susan Eastman

When Gov. Rick Scott announced his proposed $1 billion increase to education funding, it raised a lot of concerns about where the money would come from. Of equal concern, however, is where it will go – and whether it amounts to a “real” spending increase, or mere sleight of hand.

Well, the numbers are (mostly) in and the news (mostly) isn’t good. The promised $1 billion is actually a lot less than it appears (certainly less than the $1.3 billion cut from schools just last legislative session) and contains little in the form of additional classroom dollars. With thanks to state Rep. Mike Weinstein’s legislative aide, Sandy Matthews, here are a few figures worth noting:

1. Some $444 million of Scott’s billion –- almost half –- does nothing to increase funding for education. It simply plugs holes for money that would otherwise disappear from the state’s education budget. $220 of Scott’s billion will restore money from ad valorem property tax decreases (due to declining taxable values), and $224 million will go to replace money put into the budget last year that was supposed to be “nonrecurring.”

2. Another $164 million goes to offset increases to the Florida Retirement System; again – there’s nothing for the classroom here.

3. Scott’s proposal <<does>> increase per-pupil funding by $348 million, which, when divided by the projected 2012 student population of 2.7 million amounts to a net increase of $128 per pupil. But that only raises the total per-pupil allocation from about $6,200 to $6,300 — still $800 below where we were five years ago.

By my math, even if the Governor doubled the billion to $2 billion, and dedicated the second billion entirely to per-pupil funding, it would only boost the total increase to $498 per student. He’d have to triple his offer, for a total of three billion, and put ALL of the second and third billion to per pupil funding, to restore the 2007 figure. That year, education spending in Florida peaked, but Education Week Magazine still ranked us in the lowest quartile among U.S. states for per student education spending. (Florida ranks 50^th on the U.S. Census list of education spending as it relates to per capita income.)

Where to find the $3 billion? One place to look is Florida TaxWatch. The nonpartisan think tank has identified $4 billion in potential savings and tax-loophole closings. But this is the legislature’s job — their paramount duty, in fact. And there isn’t a moment to lose. Education Week Magazine published their new state rankings this week and, in the wake of years of decreased funding, Florida’s academic performance rank has now fallen, too.

– Julie Delegal

The Florida Independent reports this week that even though State Attorney General Pam Bondi has been cleared of charges that she fired two top foreclosure fraud attorneys for political reasons. However, reporter Virginia Chamlee reports it still appears the attorney general got rid of the pair to protect Jacksonville’s Lender Processing Services and another company that helped her get elected.

Bondi fired Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson even though they’d won more than $2-million in foreclosure fraud damages for the state of Florida under Attorney General Bill McCollum. Bondi fired them in 2011 saying, ironically, that they “were failing to meet expectations.”

Virginia Chamlee of the Florida Independent says that getting rid of the pair might have more to do with Bondi’s ties to two companies Clarkson and Edwards had in their sights than their performance: Jacksonville’s Lender Processing Services and Tampa-based Provest. When the attorneys gave a PowerPoint presentation on the deceptive practices of foreclosure mills, they used Lender Processing’s records to illustrate their point. Read Chamlee’s story here. On the blog 4closurefraud.org, there’s a post by Foreclosure Hamlet that goes through the Inspector General’s report into Bondi’s actions and makes notations.

— Susan Eastman

Especially this oddball StumbleUpon thread: 50 Unexplainable Black and White Photos. A few highlights below, and the link.

When State Attorney Angela Corey’s employees arrived for their office Christmas party on Dec. 21st, they discovered it wasn’t all going to be about celebration and merriment. There was politicking to take care of, too.

After receiving their name tags at one table, everyone was sent to a second table stacked with campaign petitions for them to fill out. (See pic above.) There was a stack for Corey’s reelection bid, another for state Rep. Mike Weinstein (he’s also an assistant state attorney in Corey’s office) and a third one for Mark Borello, an assistant state attorney running for circuit court judge. If a candidate collects enough signatures, he or she doesn’t have to pay a campaign filing fee.

All three candidates know that Florida Statute 104.31 prohibits any employee of the state from campaigning for elective office while on duty. It’s also illegal to interfere with an election or a nomination by coercing or influencing a person’s vote or pressuring someone to contribute something of political value — like a signature. A violation of the law is a first degree misdemeanor.

At the party, Rep. Weinstein told the group that it was OKto sign the petition because they were on their “lunch hour”. Big deal. Everyone felt pressured anyway, and the party lasted well over an hour. Corey said she didn’t care who the employees ultimately voted for, but she wanted them to fill out the petitions so that the candidates wouldn’t have to pay filing fees.

Employees say the situation put them in an awkward bind. Despite what Corey said, some feared their jobs would be in jeopardy if they didn’t play along and sign. Statute 104.31 makes such arm twisting illegal. But the region’s “top law enforcement officer” evidently feels exempt from the statute’s restrictions.

— Susan Eastman